


Days on a wire

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Series: cherry wine [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Everyone is intersex because ABO, Fraternal Polyandry, Good Brother Hashirama, M/M, Multi, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Verse, Polyamory, Shinobi Politics (Naruto), Threesome - M/M/M, Warring States Period (Naruto)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:48:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28463382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: Helping Senju Tobirama through a surprise heat without losing his head and ending up fathering a litter on the Uchiha clan's most lethal enemy had beentorture.A test of willpower the likes of which Madara never wants to go through again. Juggling his little brother's furious storm of look-at-me-I-hate-you hadn't helped.The fallout should have been easier by comparison! Just tell the Elders to butt out of his sex life, let Izuna find them a lover that could hold a candle to that bleached bastard,not feel guilty that Tobirama's own marriage prospects were now ruined,plot behind everyone's backs with the clan leader of their most terrible enemy, not alienate his lovely, paranoid, adorably pining little brother by babying him too much,tell the Elders to butt out of his sex life --Easy.Meanwhile Izuna despairs of making his brother ever see reason and Tobirama goes dutifully on to his solitary end. See? Easy.--Sequel to "blood rare and sweet as cherry wine".
Relationships: Senju Hashirama & Senju Tobirama, Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Izuna, Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Izuna/Uchiha Madara, Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara, Uchiha Izuna & Uchiha Madara
Series: cherry wine [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1752361
Comments: 128
Kudos: 417





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> -Contrary to the first fic, UPDATES WILL BE SUPER SLOW.
> 
> I had the whole thing outlined, and then the fic decided it needed one scene near the start that derailed *everything* and made most of my plot obsolete. And so here I am, re-plotting everything on the fly. I have fairly massive writer's block, so I cannot and will not promise a damn thing regarding updating speed and the like. If that's an issue for you, you might want to wait to read this. The first fic was fine as a standalone, but this one needs Fic 1's setup, and it's gonna be longuish.
> 
> -Refresher notes re: worldbuilding: 
> 
> *A/B/O verse where one pregnancy means several children at once (a litter) where one kid is either A or O (the reproductive sibling) and the rest are betas. A litter marries as a group, so the kids will call the A and their beta siblings "dad" regardless of sex and will call the O and their beta siblings "mom". The betas of the same litter are considered just as much parents of A/O children as the A/O themselves; the members of older or younger litters are just considered uncles and aunts.
> 
> *People don't expect everyone to fall in love inside the marriage -- sometimes it doesn't happen and that's cool. Betas can have outside relationships, though it's better if they wait at least a year to make sure feelings aren't going to grow inside the marriage first, but omegas and alphas aren't allowed because they might end up making children with outsiders that their sibs would then be forced to raise, which is seen as cuckolding.
> 
> *With lots of war-related deaths, adopting your older or younger siblings inside your litter so you're not alone is a thing that happens; adopting two reproductive sibling in the same litter is seen as unnatural because it's supposed to mimic the natural order and it naturally never happens. and like, if an alpha and an omega are siblings, who are they gonna marry? are the kids gonna call an alpha "mom"? is there gonna be *GASP* incest or some shit -- lots of societal pressure not to.
> 
> *Physical incest is still seen as taboo and gross, but they're expected to fuck the same people and be around during heats and share a household and be codependent their whole lives, so emotional incest is a much murkier question.

"Madara. Thank you for coming."

Madara planned on taking it to his grave, but he had once or twice, on maudlin evenings, indulged in wondering how it would go if he and his estranged childhood friend got to meet at the river again. How Hashirama's voice would sound (overjoyed, surprised, annoyingly casual?), how much he would babble, how ridiculous he would act.

That quiet, reserved tone hadn't featured in any of it.

Madara smoothed away a frown, wondered if an ambush wasn't as unlikely as he'd promised Izuna after all. "Hashirama," he greeted back, taking the man in. Hashirama wasn't in armor, which made things lean away from a violent encounter, but he _was_ in formal robes, or most of them, having apparently discarded the top layer at some point. "Where did you come from, dressed like this?"

"Clan council." His old friend, more recently enemy, gave a smile that could also have been called a grimace. "Mind if one of us crosses over? I don't want to have this talk in the middle of the river."

... Ah. 

Madara had been in his share of clan councils in the last couple of days. He could imagine. "I'll come," he offered, a little reluctant. Izuna would not like it once he heard, and it was a risk, but...

He was the one who had put his hands on Hashirama's brother, so he went, jumping across. Hashirama retreated to the trees, hands joined inside his wide sleeves, invisible. Madara followed, working on not showing his burst of anxiety. He _was_ glad when they only went to the nearest bramble-covered rockfall and didn't venture any deeper into the death trap that was any wood at all with Senju Hashirama in it. He could still see the river from here, it was just less blindingly exposed than standing dead center of a wide expanse of water.

Then they stood, staring at each other.

It was an odd thing, seeing the _Senju clan head_ facing him instead of seeing his old childhood friend in a slightly bigger body. They had met on the battlefield dozens of times already. He didn't know why this meeting felt so...

Uncomfortable. He crossed his arms, twitched his head to get his hair out of his face, chin tilted just shy of challenging. "So, what is it?"

Hashirama exhaled, slow and measured. "You can probably guess." A deeper, bracing breath; a sudden stare, eyes fearlessly meeting his eyes. "Tobirama."

"Did something happen to him on the way home?" Madara couldn't help asking, and scowled heavily to make it seem like sarcasm. "Because he was more or less fine when he pulled a whole new branch of ninjutsu out of his ass to give us the slip."

Hashirama choked on a brief, unwilling laugh. "Madara! No, he..."

An unfairly penetrative stare. Smile fading away.

"He got home fine." 

"Well. Good. Not that I expected otherwise. Your brother is a goddamned menace."

"That he is. Though it wasn't a whole new branch of ninjutsu, from what I understand. Just a rather extreme twist on a ... ah, I shouldn't say more."

Madara snorted, shoulders loosening as Hashirama's hands finally left their sleeves to gesture along. All Uchihas had been put under orders to treat seeing the hand signs for that solid clone as a high-level mission, with the danger pay to match. For a moment he debated mentioning that it was only a matter of time before they knew everything about it, but the thieving nature of the sharingan was a touchy thing with other clans... Not too much with Hashirama, as his mokuton couldn't be copied, but if Tobirama heard of that quip he would probably take creative revenge.

... Then again, 'creative revenge' implied a sort of almost playful, non-lethal relationship. 

The white demon of the Senju certainly wasn't going to be impeded by nostalgia toward an unwilling fuck.

"Yeah," he agreed, voice gone quiet, "you probably shouldn't."

This close, Hashirama smelled pleasant enough -- friendly, unrelated omega, which was always slightly interesting and which Madara had long since written off; he didn't expect the strange pang of familiarity, of _blood-kin-to-mine_. Hashirama smelled like he'd recently touched Tobirama, too, and the faint echoes of dying heat scent made him both relieved, and disgruntled that he hadn't been there until the end. He made a face; Hashirama hummed in question.

"Nothing. So. Your brother got home fine. Was there anything else?" 

Instead of getting offended at his snappish tone, the great lump smiled, a ghost of a happy thing. "You always get so grumpy when you're flustered."

Madara huffed. "Ugh, go to hell!"

"Heh." 

A pause, almost casual. 

"Did anyone rape my brother, Madara?"

Just like that, the tentative comradery starting to build up was brought down cold. Hashirama didn't look accusing or anguished, or anything but neutrally curious, and it was worse, worse than being accused to his face.

"No, that isn't the right question. I _know_ something happened. I know because he won't tell me anything but 'I'm fine' and 'It doesn't matter'."

"If he doesn't want to tell you then it's not my place to talk," Madara forced out through a throat gone tight. 

Hashirama had always been safe with him, because they'd been friends, not alpha and omega. Even after Hashirama's heats and Madara's ruts started to ramp up through puberty they had gloriously ignored it all -- the scents, the comments, the 'common wisdom', the outside assumptions. They'd just been two boys battling with stick swords and gross handfuls of algae.

The way Hashirama was regarding him now was starting to edge toward the way a powerful omega regarded those who might have befouled another, younger omega in their keeping. Madara had seen the look build up often enough on his aunt's face. Suspicion lined with unsurprised betrayal, and then would come the righteous wrath.

"You may ask me what I _didn't_ do and I'll answer," he barked, throat raw with offense and stupid hurt. "You may ask me for Izuna as well. But what did happen won't -- I'm not telling you that."

Hashirama opened his mouth as if to shout back -- closed his eyes tight, breathed forcefully slow. Looked back up at him and his eyes were searching, asking...

"... Did anything happen that might result in children?"

... Good. He'd figured it out. Madara _was_ willing to talk to him, couldn't in good conscience say nothing to reassure him. It was a delicate dance, was all. He breathed out in turn, loosening his stance. "No."

Hashirama's eyes roamed across his face, his stance, already breathing easier. "You're absolutely certain."

"I am," he replied soberly. "Izuna and I had custody of him from start to finish. Nobody else laid a hand on him."

(... A hand. Hah. He tilted his head to let his hair cover part of his face, feeling the heat rise up his throat and cheeks. Stupid wording.)

With a great big sigh, Hashirama sank all at once onto a bit of protruding rock, less sitting down than flopping like a doll its puppeteer had dropped.

"So why wouldn't he _tell me that?_ " he moaned, hands fisted in flowing locks. "God, I had to go up to the council and swear on everything and both my fathers' martyred stupid bones that he hadn't -- Guanyin have mercy, the things they _said_ \-- that he'd done it deliberately to start an all-out war, that _you'd_ done it deliberately to befoul our line and we had a traitor selling you his location, that if he hadn't done it maybe he _should have_ \-- and all the way through, all he told me was I didn't need to concern myself with what happened! He's my _baby brother_ , Madara, how am I meant to do that?!"

Madara gave him a slow blink, and then a commiserating chuff, not quite a real chuckle. There was a tree with a branch at about the right height a foot back, so he sat down on it, too, finally relaxing.

"You didn't even wonder what _Izuna and I_ did, did you."

Because they hadn't locked Tobirama away and guarded him from outside his sealed bedchambers like some enshrined princess. Limiting the damage didn't mean doing none. Hashirama's brother _had_ been touched in intimate ways he hadn't invited and while many people would believe the man should shrug it off and move on -- while Madara believed Tobirama definitely _would_ shrug it off and move on, eventually, for now it still counted.

Hashirama lifted his head from his hands, where he'd been rubbing at his forehead with frustrated vigor, looked at him head-on.

"Madara, if you had done anything you'd be ashamed to admit to me, you wouldn't be looking me in the eye either."

Madara spluttered a little. That... that too-trusting idiot. "You're the one who has no shame if you think I'd talk to you about anything regarding that kind of topic!"

All at once, Hashirama grinned -- the sun emerging over dying storm clouds. "I said ashamed, not flustered."

"I don't get flustered either!"

That tree-humping asshole _cackled_.

Madara knew it came from relief and not sadistic amusement, but it was still annoying. "Oh, shut up," he grumbled. "So--" 

Ugh. 

Uuugh. He didn't want to ask. (He really wanted to ask.) He _shouldn't_ ask. It wasn't... hadn't... He really needed more practice at one-night-stands and moving on, didn't he. Hashirama smelled omega but also like sibling-of-my-mate, and Madara had ended up going through a bit of a ghost rut yesterday, a sympathy reaction come too late to be of any use; he was still oversensitized to Tobirama's scent. The strength of will he'd had to exert when they unsealed his fucking _jizzed-up pants_ with the _streaks_ Tobirama had left riding his lap in the _fucking council house_ \-- gghk.

"... So he was just fine, then. Hmph. Figures."

"Oh, if we ignore the bruising, the rope burns, the cuts, and the bite mark on his neck, he was peachy!" Hashirama beamed. "So, which one of you did that?"

 _\--Fuck_. "Izuna," Madara replied immediately. Hashirama only smiled brighter. "... I needed to rattle him, alright? It meant nothing."

"Oh, whyever are you saying that, what _could_ it possibly mean?"

Uuugh, this goddamn _troll_. Madara glared, arms crossed defensively, face a little warm. "Shut up already." 

Huffing, he leaned back against the tree trunk. Hashirama kept smiling at him, slowly losing the manic brightness for gentler, more real affection; Madara cleared his throat, sighed.

It had been years since they were friends. It felt a lot better than it had any right to feel, getting a little slice of it back. Especially since he couldn't keep it.

"You're a pain, Senju."

"You love me, though."

Eyes narrowed, Madara opened his mouth to shoot back, 'You know what else I love? Your brother naked,' and immediately shut it with a groan, his eyes squinching closed. 

"I just had the perfect retort and I can't even use it without it becoming mutually assured destruction. But I want you to know you would have _cried_."

Hashirama laughed out loud, slapping his thigh in mirth. "I could cry right now if that would help!"

" _No_."

"Pffhehehe. Alright, alright."

They spent a moment in easy, pleased silence, Madara pretending he wasn't smiling at all and Hashirama shamelessly not bothering that far.

Hashirama had gotten the information he had been after -- whether and how badly Tobirama had been hurt. Whether his honor and that of his clan had been sullied -- things a brother and a clan head needed to know, so he could decide if he needed to take revenge for it. He should just thank Madara and leave, now, but he wasn't doing that. 

Madara should go, too. He was here as a courtesy to someone he owed no courtesies to, to whom offering courtesies was even kind of treasonous. And yet here he still was, basking in the dumb relief of knowing Hashirama held no grudge -- forgave him -- still liked him -- _something_. 

"Anyway," he eventually blurted out when that got embarrassing. "How'd your clan handle the... You know. Thing?"

"The thing?"

Madara waved a hand around, trying to gather words. "The two omegas in a single litter thing, Hashirama, what else!"

Hashirama shrugged, reclined in his seat. His fancy hakama were getting all damp and scratched with brambles. "Well... People sort of knew we weren't littermates to start with. I'm almost three years older than Tobirama's litter, it would have been hard to hide me that long and then pretend I fit in with the newborns."

Madara couldn't help but notice he had stopped talking there and hadn't, actually, answered his question. Scowling, he almost pushed for more, and then -- well. It was an answer in itself, wasn't it.

"Ah, it'll be fine, they understand why we pretended."

"They do?" Madara replied waspishly. "I don't." 

He understood why they would wish for Hashirama not to grow up single, but to go that far to ensure it, that was... Maybe it was cultural, or something, but it felt like too much. That brat Daichi growing up single amongst the Uchihas had provoked a lot of gossip and pity, too, but never to the point that camouflaging that by shoving him in with another alpha and calling them brothers had even been a _suggestion_.

"Oh, you know," Hashirama replied vaguely. "It puts us in a position of weakness when looking for marriage alliances?"

That... was the stupidest excuse he'd heard so far. "What, were they planning to bait a clan with the both of you and then laugh it off as a good joke at the altar?" 

Hashirama beamed, utterly meaningless.

"... That's... pretty much what they _did_... isn't it...?" 

"You're so suspicious!"

Madara glared -- then stiffened as a thought came to him. "Wait. Do the Uzumaki set still think they're marrying the both of you?!"

Hashirama's smile brightened some more. He _still didn't answer_.

"Shit," Madara swore, with feeling. "Listen, you _know_ my clan was going to use it against your clan, right? We've been sowing rumors right and left for two days straight, you do _not_ want your betrotheds finding out that way!"

Hashirama sighed philosophically, that terrifying mask of an expression finally falling away. "Mmh. Tobirama sent a letter first thing after he emerged from his bath, but it won't get there for a few days. Nobody's made a decision yet, but he seems pretty determined to pull out, so..."

... Senju Tobirama rising out of his bathtub, hair wet and dripping, skin flushed with heat, all loose and refreshed -- Madara groaned.

Then sobered up, dismayed. _Tobirama_ wanted to pull out, or at least believed he had to. Did... Did Hashirama not want him to? 

Hell. Who would. "I'm sorry you're going to have to be alone," he said quietly, awkward with sincere regret.

Hashirama waved it off, chuckling softly. "I'm not going to be alone, I'm going to have seven husbands. Seven!" he added with a sudden beaming grin. "Can you even believe that? I never even had a single sib my age -- haha, this is going to be weird. But nice! But weird. A full household!"

" _Seven_ husbands? Sage bless." Madara shook his head in sheer disbelief. Of course litters that size happened, but that they had all survived to adulthood? Impressive. Said great things for Uzushio child-rearing practices, or maybe just their fertility. "Maybe they _could_ have kept up with two omegas at once after all."

Hashirama pinched his lips worriedly, and then, reaching out to rest a hand on his shoulder, said with slow gentleness, "Madara, I'm flattered you trust me with your intimate fantasies, but--"

Madara's screech of rage scared the birds off the trees at a hundred paces.

"See if I ever bother to be concerned about you ever again!" he snarled. Hashirama kept grinning as he watched him pace, visibly entertained. "You and your cursed brother, you're from the same loins indeed! What am I even still doing here?!"

"My bad, my bad."

"You're still laughing!"

"You're still being funny! -- No, wait, wait, I'm sorry, don't go. I'll stop. I promise."

"And _that's_ a lie."

Fuming, Madara crossed his arms and stared him down as he let himself simmer down. Hashirama was sobering up, his smile more melancholic than teasing.

"We shouldn't even be talking like this," Madara muttered eventually. "Only reason I even risked it is that everyone's cowed right now. Or at least everyone still routinely leaving the compound, may those old farts _burn_. Ugh."

"Ugh," Hashirama echoed solemnly. Madara gave him the stink-eye, suspicious that he was being teased. "Ours are a bit too happy that Tobirama is now free to strike out on his own, honestly. It means _two_ possible alliances, you see. Haa. So annoying. As if his worth as my second in command is less than his bride-price would be."

Madara closed his mouth. Huh. Yeah. It would be a waste of a competent second and powerful shinobi to marry him out-clan. The alliance his marriage would bring would have to outweigh that by a _lot_ before the Senju could afford to risk losing him to other allegiances. It'd be smarter for them to marry him to a lower-ranked clan and have his spouses move to him instead, but at that point a vassal bond might be more than enough to solidify the relationship.

... As a way to seal a Senju-Uchiha alliance it might just be good enough. But that was it -- it was the kind of thing that caped off a long political détente. As a mark of good-faith and trust; or if you wanted to be cynical, as an offering of a long-term hostage.

Tobirama would _really suck_ as a hostage. And their clans were nowhere near that point anyway, they were still in all-out war, a clan head's _heir_ had been considered a fair target for retaliatory rape and murder by his men only three days ago. And...

And he was making a tiny little whine of a noise, fingers clenching and unclenching slowly; Hashirama was staring at him with his head tilted and an edge of shinobi wariness and calculation showing just barely behind the curiosity.

"Madara?"

"Never mind. Took a side trip in my head. Moving along." 

Goddamned ghost rut.

"Alright," he said, sighing, "if that was all, I should get going."

"You probably should," Hashirama replied. 

Madara couldn't help but feel annoyed about the ease he'd said it with. "Shouldn't you be trying to convince me to... I don't even want to talk about it, why did I bring it up."

"Peace?" his old friend said, leaning forward on his hand, ankles crossed casually under his tripping hazard of a formal hakama. "I didn't imagine you'd sorted out your internal affairs in the two weeks since our last skirmish."

Madara hissed in offense. "Why do you assume it's internal affairs?! Maybe I changed my mind! Maybe it was a stupid childish daydream, and I don't know if you've noticed, you overgrown child, but we're adults now!"

Hashirama hummed, casually unbothered. "Of course."

"Stop _agreeing_ with me."

"Of course not."

"I'm going to burn you bald."

Laughing, Hashirama stood, patting down his sides and knees to get the dust off. "Alright, that I disagree with for real. And of course a whole village is a bit too big a dream--"

"I _said_ , stop _agreeing_ with me, you _liar_."

"--But a cease-fire, that sounds a little more attainable as a first step, doesn't it?"

Scowling, Madara crossed his arms. He _wished_ he could have a cease-fire. Signing off on one without making the Elders think it was all their idea, though? In two weeks they'd have another batch of young idiots sneaking past the Senju lines to take revenge for some shit they'd almost forgotten to be angry about, and then Madara would have to wade in and escalate the whole damned thing all over again.

"If you've got a plan my council will accept, I am _all ears_."

"Hmm. I'm still thinking it through."

In the unlikely advent of peace Madara should obviously _never_ introduce him to Izuna, since they were both lying liars who lied. 

Hashirama chuckled. "Ah, don't make that face. I just think it'll be better if nobody can accuse you of collusion with the enemy if they imagine you're not surprised enough."

The worst thing was that it made sense. That and, similar goals or not, they were actually not allies. Them having similar ideologies wasn't the same as a mutual agreement to actively work toward the same goal that superseded their other priorities. 

For one thing, having _that_ behind his clan's back would definitely be treason.

"Am I going to hate it?"

"You hate everything."

"I'm going to hate it," Madara concluded.

They stood once again in silence, watching each other. Then -- well, someone had to, and he'd already taken the risk by coming onto his river bank and following him into the woods -- Madara turned away first. His back itched. He made himself ignore it.

"Madara..."

"Hm?"

"I was happy, you know, that you never told anyone I wasn't Tobirama's littermate."

When Madara glanced over his shoulder the look on Hashirama's face almost made him want to turn away right back and never look at him again. Flushed with embarrassment and stinging regret, he cleared his throat, shrugged dismissively.

So the previous Senju head had decided to hide an unsavory weakness in a rather short-sighted way. Two reproductive siblings shoved in the same litter for camouflage, to smother that ridiculous rumor about Hashirama (as if stillbirths never happened to anyone else) and maybe -- if one wanted to be generous -- to limit the trauma of such absolute loneliness. Tobirama and Hashirama had still come from the same omega womb in the end, been sired by the same alpha, raised by the same betas -- had mourned the same siblings. What did a few years matter? The only real issues were the risk of non-reproductive incest (the risk of salacious rumors about it, more likely) and the passing of Tobirama's children as his brother's instead (and they would still have shared the same sire); and they were moot now.

Sure, it could have cost the Senju a couple of (dozen) contracts, some trust with their clients. Sure, it would have delighted his father and their Council of Elders. Sure, it was doing that right now, except a bit worse because Hashirama and his brother weren't bereaved children any longer but grown men of an age to marry, and this was basically marriage fraud. So what? 

"It's really not that important."

"Maybe it isn't. I was kind of sad you couldn't keep that secret for me anymore, though."

Madara knew his meaning well enough. He had given that secret in trust, and Madara had kept it, and that meant -- as the great lump assumed -- he was still generally trustworthy. Or could be, once again -- as if a private childhood secret weighed the same as the lives and livelihoods of a whole clan, as if any trust could be absolute. "We're not having that conversation," he snapped, irritated, and took a step away.

"So here's another one." Hashirama was smiling, he could hear it in his voice. "The rumor is right. I _was_ a single birth."

When Madara whirled around to gape at him, he was already gone.

\--

"By the look on your face... Let me guess, the tree-fucker actually tried to share his husband trees."

Oh, Madara was back at the compound. Or almost; it was the last stretch of forested path before the cleared fields around the walls. He'd even signaled a couple patrols on his way through, hadn't he? Huh. 

His brother was waiting there, just out of sight of the guards, leaning against an elm and his arms pointedly crossed. 

"Uh. No."

Izuna's eyebrows scrunched down. "He did do _something_ though. I served you the most stupid joke ever and you took it seriously." He pushed away from the tree to come and peer at Madara from closer up. Madara just blinked back. "Niisan?"

"I'm fine, I just -- it's not bad. Or relevant."

"... Is Tobirama pregnant?" 

Madara spluttered. "--What? _No!_ How the hell could he be?!"

Izuna threw his hands in the air, looking exasperated. "I don't know, you tell me! He pickpocketed your fundoshi? Seriously, tell me you think he couldn't have somehow."

"I -- well, he _didn't_. Probably. I mean. If Hashirama was lying to me about that then he's a much better liar than I thought. He..." Madara raked a hand through his hair, tried to massage the tension out of his skull. Gave up, and went to sit heavily on a jutting rock a few feet back. 

"... Did he die on the way back home? Maim himself? Niisan, you're worrying me."

Madara looked up at his brother. What he meant was, 'the thought of Tobirama having died on his way back worries me'. Heh. Alright, no, he was probably worried for Madara as well. But... 

They really did need to go and pick up people. Have dalliances. Look into eventually getting themselves betrothed. It was going to get really weird on the battlefield if Izuna kept up his 'I wish to kill you very much and am planning to celebrate the anniversary of your demise _religiously_ , but no one else may even breathe on you' dance.

"He's fine, he's fine. It's nothing to do with him, it's... Hashirama told me something in confidence. God, I hate him so much."

Izuna's frown went from overdone frustration to more serious, somber suspicion. 

"In confidence, meaning you can't tell me?"

The thing was, one of Madara's beta mothers _had_ witnessed a single birth. Once. The babe had had two faces, a third, withered arm emerging from a badly closed gape in its tiny chest. Organs blooming on the outside. It hadn't lived through birth.

Babes with stillborn littermates were a very, _very_ different matter from true singlets. True singlets were at best a grotesque accident of nature and at worst a divine curse, and Madara did not wish to anger any potential gods by assuming one way or another. It was said to be a punishment for the parents' wrongs, or a mark of an utterly monstrous soul. They didn't live often enough, long enough to know for sure. The rumored few to have survived...

Hashirama was... not that.

But the monstrousness had to go somewhere. People would very strongly believe that.

Madara groaned. "I really can't tell you. It's a personal thing, not... Not shinobi-related. Or war-related, just. Even if I shared it I'd just sound like I'm making it up."

"Uh huh?"

"And the more I talk around it the more likely you'll figure it out, so I'm stopping here. Sorry, Izuna."

Izuna's brows furrowed in displeasure. "Fine, but I don't like it." A sigh, giving up -- at least for now. "What else did you talk about? Anything worth figuring out how to report some other way?"

Madara made a moue of distaste, but thought back on the conversation either way. "Nothing we couldn't have guessed. His council of Elders is being a pain." He scoffed. What a surprise. "We might see an uptick in seduction attempts on away missions because apparently at least one of them thought getting one of their own knocked up would have been a great plan if only it had been deliberate."

Izuna rolled his eyes extensively. Madara vaguely thought of warning him if a crow cawed at the same time he might get his sharingan stuck that way. Kijitora used to make that joke all the damn time, his still-pudgy face serious as the grave as little Izuna and Anaguma whimpered, believing him unconditionally.

He wondered how Kijitora would have handled it all. The Senju war, the Senju omegas, the council bullshit. Firstborn of the firstborn, smart and even-tempered; friendly but not open -- only open to Madara and Sabigata. Mostly Sabi. Shaping up to become such a good shinobi...

He'd never even reached double digits.

"Niisan?"

"--My bad."

He almost waved it off, said it was nothing, pointless woolgathering. What use would it be, bringing Izuna's mood down?

But they never talked about the painful things, didn't they.

"Wondering how Kijitora would have handled it."

"--Kiji-nii?"

Izuna hesitated, then slowly took a seat at his side, looking unsure.

"I don't really... I don't remember him enough to even guess. What would he even want?"

Probably not peace. That had only become Madara's obsession after his death. They'd been too young to even think that far before then.

"Sabigata liked princess stories. Sweeping brides off their feet as bandits hunted them down. That one series of adventure books with a family group of about twenty people. I bet he'd have been in our ears all day and night about snatching up both Hashirama and his brother and going to conquer the daimyo or something."

"Pfft." Izuna smiled despite himself, something tender and bitter both. "Maybe at thirteen, but any older than that..."

Madara clicked his tongue. "At thirteen I was meeting with Hashirama at the river. I would wager you anything he would have gone for him. He'd have thought it was _romantic and fated_."

"Heh!" Izuna's eyes crinkled. "And Kiji-nii?"

Madara thought about it, then gave a decisive nod. His throat felt tight, but his mouth was still curved in a smile. "Kiji would have yelled at Sabi for talking Hashirama into stealing his first kiss."

Izuna laughed, leaning into his shoulder, eyes a little too glossy. Still smiling faintly, Madara gazed away at the forest, pretended his own sight wasn't wavering as if underwater. 

He had no idea if any of that would ever have been true. Sabi had died at ten; Kijitora at nine. Even their still-careless young teenage selves were something Madara had trouble extrapolating toward; their adult ones were impossible. Who even knew how many things would have happened to mature them, to scar them up? He spoke with conviction anyway, willing it to be true, to have _been_ true, to still be something that existed somewhere in some better universe.

Eventually his little brother sighed, melancholic and amused, shook himself, and nudged him. His eyes were crinkled with slightly more tenderness than mockery. 

"So what you're saying is, you guys _would_ have ended up married to Hashirama."

"Aha!" Madara shot back, and finally climbed back to his feet; " _but it wouldn't have been my fault_."

\--

So if he took into consideration this singular chakra pathway going from the second Gate, the gate of Healing, to the gate of Pain -- bypassing the third Gate entirely -- and the tendency of all chakra natures to be... not purified out, but somewhat qualitatively altered when -- no, it made no sense.

It should have made sense, it almost did, but it didn't. His mind kept refusing to make the intuitive jump to the solution he could feel barely out of reach.

He just wanted to figure out a way to train his body to kickstart a flush-out of all unwanted pathogens, drugs, hormonal imbalances, whatever. He just wanted to _control his own fucking body_ instead of being controlled by it. Was that too much to ask? 

Chakra-based ways to rebalance hormonal levels using medical ninjutsu were delicate enough -- were nowhere near ready to implement outside of research conditions, not even while in full control of his faculties. But if he _were_ in full control of his faculties then he wouldn't be trying to get rid of _the things affecting them_. It was just so--

"Tobira-san, water?"

He almost threw his scroll at his mother's face.

"...Tobira-san?"

Frozen, Tobirama flushed hot. It wasn't that he'd _forgotten_ Ritsu-hahaue and Kūkai-hahaue were in his room, it was just…

It grated so much, he'd been pushing down the awareness as hard as he could. So in effect he had, indeed, forgotten they were there. He cleared his throat. He wanted nothing more than to ask them to leave his room, but he wasn't going to.

"Are you sure you would not rather be in your nest?"

"Water sounds good," he returned, ignoring the suggestion entirely. 

His _nest_. Hah.

The rooms built with omegas in mind in the Senju compound tended to come with a den of sorts -- an enclosed space, well-shielded, often lowered into the ground like a fire pit to make it easy to fill with blankets and pillows. Tobirama had not deemed one necessary back when Hashirama inherited the clan head position, and had just moved into one of the beta rooms connected to Hashirama's.

The closet normally used to store futons was... It was tolerable. Barely deep enough for a futon's width and not quite long enough to unroll it all the way, which meant his feet would definitely touch the wall if he tried to lay down on his back -- he was not a short man by any means. He'd had to take out several shelves just to have enough headroom to sit up straight--

It didn't matter. It wasn't like he would be joined in his nest by any sibs or mates -- it wasn't like he felt the need to be in it. He had just set it up to get Hashirama off his back.

"... If you're sure."

Tobirama shuffled on his knees from his desk to the little table buried under reference scrolls that was supposed to be used for people and tea.

Ritsu-hahaue was sitting seiza between a tower of boxes and a pile of linens he'd moved out of his closet. She unsealed a kettle -- cold, of course, you couldn't seal anything that needed to maintain a heightened temperature, or not yet at any rate but Meio-hime had shared some intriguing... 

No. He wasn't going to think about Meio-hime now. Tobirama watched dully as his mother poured out nothing but water, burying the thought. Right, yes. No tea of any kind so long as his body hadn't flushed out every trace of drugs, in case of interactions.

Head bowed under the artful tower of her coiled white hair, Ritsu-hahaue slid the cup closer to him with the fingertips of both hands, careful not to get in easy grabbing distance. Tobirama let out a short sigh. It was ridiculous that his own mother would keep her distances, as if wary of triggering a bad reaction. Tobirama was _fine_. 

Tobirama felt like ants were crawling across his back every second he sat in a space wide enough to expose him. But apart from that, fine.

He took the cup, bowing over it as thanks, and sipped at it, resolutely refusing to retreat. This was _his own mother_. It was fine. 

It wasn't even his _omega_ mother. 

(His omega mother had made a beeline to sit at the window, turned her head so she could keep a watch on the garden, and had studiously not even glanced at him or any of his possessions ever since.)

"How are you feeling?" Ritsu-hahaue asked softly. Tobirama grunted, wishing he could shrug his shoulder instead -- but that would be disrespectful.

"Slightly restless." Like he'd been abandoned by kith and kin while he might be pregnant. "It's controllable." What it was, was ridiculous. He wasn't in the middle of the wilderness, being hunted by packs of enemies. 

He might feel more comfortable if he _was_ in the middle of the wilderness, he thought, and smothered a snort in his cup.

"Does a nest help you feel anything but restrained?" Kūkai-hahaue said in a reserved tone, not turning to look at him. 

... How did she always _know_. He breathed more deeply over his cup, pretending it was tea that needed to cool. "Being out of sight helps."

He drained the rest of the cup and put it down, slid it forward for Ritsu-hahaue to take back.

The thing was, he and his mothers were not close. Their fathers had not encouraged it. It should have felt soothing to have them here with him as he rode out the last of an unfulfilled heat -- the same kind of soothing as having his littermates, blood-related and not competition and _safe_ \-- but it was too late, he was too old now and... 

Their fathers hadn't encouraged it but he hadn't pushed against it either -- his littermates dead and only Hashirama left to fight for, to lie for. His duty had always felt very clear -- self-evident.

He'd liked being a beta better. 

For starters, nobody cared who or what a beta put up their cunt.

"Tobira-san?"

She looked worried, a hand risen an inch from her lap as if hesitating to reach out. He cleared his throat, hunted for a change of topic. "I did not ask... Ren-hahaue is not here today." He couldn't feel her in the compound when he reached out to make sure she wasn't simply in the corridor, or patrolling the roofs.

"Mission."

He blinked slowly, not too sure what to say next. His last mother was still an active kunoichi, but not a high-profile one. "Urgent?"

Kūkai-hahaue made a quiet sound of negation, still turned to watch the garden. "She did not want to be here in case she had to hear about... unsavory things."

Tobirama scowled. Three fucking days in and everyone was still persuaded he was hiding the only possible truth, even his own kin. "Which I told all of you _did not happen_ ," he snapped back, and tried -- and failed -- to keep his face from heating up. "She's the kunoichi, you would think she wouldn't be so--" 

He bit back his words, closed his eyes, breathed. It was simply too damn rude to be curt to his own mothers, especially when they were just worried about him. He'd been an active ninja from age six, and they had allowed that with somber reserve and charged silences, but the risks associated with his hidden sex had always seemed to bother them more, even though the risk of death was so much lower than active combat.

"Indeed, she's the kunoichi. She's the one who has the means and the know-how to run an assassination mission."

"...Oh."

"Better to remove all temptation," Kūkai-hahaue finished blandly. Ritsu-hahaue's mouth twisted with emotion behind a polite sleeve; she averted her eyes. Tobirama hesitated to reach his hand across the table to her. For all that the white of her hair resembled his, the strength of her emotions was much closer to Hashirama's.

(To Itama's, really, but he wasn't thinking about that.)

"Are you sure she hasn't gone ahead with the assassination?" he couldn't help but ask, a little drolly, trying for some humor to smother the bitterness with. Kūkai-hahaue huffed. Ritsu-hahaue winced.

"Whose assassination is that?"

\--Oh. Oh, thank the gods. "Anija," he greeted, voice as casual as he could make it past the instant, physical relief, his prickling nerves and tense muscles gone to water and soothing warmth. Hashirama stood in the door, smiling, brambles caught in his formal hakama. 

"No, I'm worried now," his brother pouted half-seriously. "You lot are planning assassinations without me. That's hurtful. I feel very left out."

"You're ridiculous," Tobirama retorted, instead of asking what he wanted to know, which was _'what was so important that you didn't come back straight after that damned meeting was done_ '. Hashirama had told him he'd have to run errands and Tobirama had replied he didn't need hovering; he wasn't going to make a liar out of himself. Even though he hadn't imagined the errands would take an actual century. "Of course we plan assassinations without you, you're as discreet as a sounder of wild boars."

He was ready to snipe more, eager for the distraction, and then his brother moved to the end of the table and the smell caught him.

He'd -- that -- _ah_.

He should have known, Tobirama couldn't help thinking in a small corner of his brain not taken over by exclamation points and brainlessly elated hope. He should have known his brother would bulldoze straight to the source.

Three days ago, he had come back home exhausted and filthy and stinking of alpha musk and semen, and _laughing_ , smug and pleased. (He'd tricked his mates good and proper; it was hilarious, wasn't it? Gotten the better of them, but more like a game than like a betrayal, he lied to himself, so it was okay to leave them behind. They would catch up.) Snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, too, which professionally speaking was extremely satisfying, and his body was so tired and so alive, so sated.

He'd said he was fine, because even in that euphoric state he knew better than to tell his brother he had never come so hard in his life.

Reality had set in during the day that followed.

He'd kept saying he was fine, because everything that was not fine was -- hormones. Political fallout. Nothing that should touch him personally, once he leveled off. 

Of _course_ Hashirama wasn't going to accept that at face-value.

"I see you went out," Kūkai-hahaue commented. Hashirama laughed, batting at his hakama as he sat down. 

"Indeed! It was quite productive -- ah, Tobirama?"

Tobirama blinked. Why was Hashirama not finishing sitting down? He'd paused with a knee down on the floor, a hand on the table, and ... And Tobirama was leaning toward him, wasn't he. Still seated but his ass not far from lifting off the floor so he could roll onto his knees and shuffle to the end of the table. Clearing his throat, he straightened up. His face felt hot.

"...Who did you meet, Hashirama," Kūkai-hahaue asked, expressionless.

Tobirama could only sit there and stare, knowing the name that was going to fall out his brother's mouth, but caught on that last sliver of denial.

"Uchiha Madara," his brother told them with perfect, shameless aplomb, and appropriated the cup and the kettle. "--No tea? Oh, right. Oh well." He looked up, meeting Tobirama's and their mothers' eyes in turn. "As for how it went, I did leave him alive, so in the unlikely case there _is_ an assassination mission planned for him, I would appreciate it being postponed."

Then he beamed with all his teeth.

Tobirama kicked him.

The water sloshed out of the cup as Hashirama jerked back with a yelp. "Tobira! Why'd you do that?"

Tobirama stared at him irately, hand clenched on the edge of the table, ready to haul himself up. "Do you want an _itemized list?_ "

"Tobirama--"

"Because I can make you a list! One, he's an Uchiha, we're at war with the fucking Uchiha--"

" _Tobirama_ \--"

"--Two, the council's going to be on your ass faster than you can say _treason_ , three--"

His brother caught his face between two big, rough-skinned hands. Tobirama shuddered, mouth slamming closed, breathed out through his nose. Which was a mistake, because the scent was all over his brother's palm.

"Tobira, it's alright. Nobody knows but us."

He wanted to get angry all over again but his brother's hands smelled like _mate_ , like he hadn't been abandoned after all and his alpha was just on his brother's heels, just taking a little while to catch up.

"Why would you _do_ that," he demanded, aghast, desperate, exhausted. 

"Why would you even ask," Hashirama countered, gentle but unbending. "For that matter, that you didn't guess I was going to do it worries me a bit."

He let go of Tobirama's face to run a hand through his short hair instead, raking it backwards. Tobirama sighed out his tension, breath shuddering.

"I shouldn't have left you alone that long. I'm sorry."

Tobirama growled, sitting back, out from under his hand. "I'm _fine_. I'm just pissed off."

"Of course."

The ass was laughing at him. Tobirama considered kicking him again -- something that utterly lacked the decorum expected of an adult, but did he care right now? He really wasn't sure at all.

"You didn't kill him," Kūkai-hahaue pressed, her eyes cutting to Hashirama, all her pointed inattentiveness gone. Tobirama wanted to growl, to warn her off. "Develop a little, if you would."

Hashirama shrugged, spreading out his hands. "He didn't tell me much and what he did tell me I will not repeat, because Tobirama might take the eyes right out of my skull if I did!" He sobered up. "But I am satisfied that revenge is not necessary."

Tobirama had been in Uchiha hands while in heat, and revenge was not necessary. He shoved the thought and all that it implied down; growled again, staring away. "I _told you that_."

"No, you didn't, you told me not to worry about it, which was a really stupid thing to say and I'm taking it as proof that you're still nowhere near stable enough to go out so don't even ask."

"I wasn't _going to!_ "

"But you were going to brood about wanting to, and now you don't need to! You're welcome."

Hashirama was lucky their mothers were still there. Tobirama didn't know what he would have thrown, but he was spoiled for choice of random objects in arm's reach right now and his oaf of a brother would probably waste a minute or so on shocked betrayal so Tobirama might even get a second and third throws in.

"Hahaue. How has he been, really?"

Scowling, Tobirama kept his mouth pointedly closed. Ritsu-hahaue cleared her throat, said nothing, though the expression she made was sorrowful enough that she didn't need to. Kūkai-hahaue entirely declined letting herself be guilted into discretion. 

"Irritable, defensive--"

Hashirama beamed genially. "Hah! Well, that's just normal--"

"And unable to concentrate."

"... Hm."

"Indeed." She stood, all at once, with no warning, and Tobirama's shoulders tightened with the need to move back to his nest, to put Hashirama between the two of them and any children he might be carrying. Like he actually had any to steal. Fuck's _sake_. "We will be leaving you now. Ritsu, come, let's go."

Tobirama didn't fully relax until the door had slid closed behind Ritsu-hahaue and her quietly tragic expression. Without a word, he stood to open the window, get some fresher air in. Then he picked up a pile of clothes and moved it to a better corner. Then that box full of greaves probably needed to be against the wall --

"Tobirama." 

"Why did you _touch_ him." He didn't turn around to look at his brother, head bowed over whatever pile of junk it was he was shuffling around. He probably couldn't look at him without biting. Or starting to crave a hug. Fucking _hell_.

"... Do you want me to wash my hands?"

Tobirama gave up, all at once, knowing Hashirama was avoiding answering him on purpose, that he probably had _touched Madara_ on purpose -- assuming it would help, or some more arcane reason Tobirama would never understand. He sat brusquely on the floor, cross legged, arms crossed, defensive all over, and still in arm's reach.

When his elder brother slipped an arm around his neck and reeled him in, he didn't even bother squirming.

... Safe. 

Damned hormones.

They sat in silence for a minute or two, breathing together, Tobirama working methodically through each clenched muscle group to loosen it. Littermate scent. Mate scent. Warmth. Chakra buzzing of life and strength. Nobody would be kidnapping _their_ babies.

... Yes. Their babies were extremely safe right now. Mostly by being nonexistent. 

"What did the two of you talk about?" he muttered, eyes closed, still pretending to meditate himself calmer even as he listed sideways into his brother's stupid pectorals.

"You know, Madara was quite intrigued by the thought of us sharing a heat!"

Each muscle Tobirama had managed to loosen tightened with a little twang. He craned his head, squinting his suspicion. "Is this another case of you misconstruing things as badly as possible to piss people off?

"Do I do that?" 

Tobirama didn't even have to say anything, just throw a side-look.

"Haha, no, we just got onto the topic of... Well. My future husbands."

The kind way he had said that stung.

Not 'our' future husbands, the way he had always before talked about the Uzumaki brood. Tobirama had been the one to call it off, to immediately write the letter warning them he would be pulling out of the arrangement. It wasn't even official yet, the Elders still kicking up a fuss at the potential loss of face and of a dozen secret concessions in return for a second, just as secret omega, as if dragging their feet on acknowledging it would do anything but offend their allies more. Hearing Hashirama mention it so easily, though...

It really was over, wasn't it.

They'd all known Tobirama could get found out at any time. They had known, and Tobirama had still let himself get used to the future hinted at in their letters.

Meio-hime and Mito-hime were so damned _smart_ ; they liked asking themselves the same questions he did about chakra, about seals, about the nature of time, about the _universe_. There had been so many 'when we're married, let's collaborate on this'. Buraki-hime was a rare water-natured Uzumaki and could do things with mist and foam Tobirama had never thought about. Even the others -- Tobirama hadn't truly disliked a single one of them and none of them had disliked him, and he knew he was no easy man to get along with.

It was gone now. A fat lot of good it had done him, telling himself his optimism was of the cautious kind and so it was okay to let himself get comfortable with the idea.

At least he had never met most of them in person. He was mostly losing a possibility.

Hashirama shifted against him, leaned backwards. Tobirama grumbled a protest. Then grumbled harder when his sibling started shuffling the both of them on the polished floor toward the... 

Ugh. "Do we have to? We're going to be squashed half to death and smothered to the other half."

"In the closet, brother," his ass of a sibling ordered with a cheerful lack of mercy, and shoved him along. 

Growling, Tobirama went, shuffling the rest of the way on his knees. The closet was...

The nest was. 

Small. Soft. Soft clothes and soft pillows; familiar scents. He hadn't managed to tolerate anything of their mothers' but there were a few old keepsakes from their cousins Furu and Haname, though none from Touka. Tobirama knew Hashirama didn't mind her scent whenever he nested, but it turned out Tobirama did, just distantly related enough that her alpha scent grated instead of soothing him.

He rolled onto his back, feet propped up on the wall, and stared helplessly at the closet's ceiling. Hashirama took a second to shed his formal kimono and hakama and then came in wearing nothing but the thin cotton underlayer and his socks; slid the door closed and lay down halfway on Tobirama, squashing him and jostling the pillows so they toppled over his face.

"Heavy," Tobirama muttered, and did nothing to shove him off.

He wasn't going to bring Hashirama's palm to his face and breathe in. He refused to. His eyes prickled with hormonal anguish, an entirely illogical, inescapable response. "Let's talk about the clan meeting," he brought up at random, for something else to say.

"Oh, the secretary took notes, she should have brought them to you."

"She _did_ , but -- ugh. You know what I want. I don't need the _minutes_."

Hashirama chuckled quietly, but indulged him, talking for a few minutes in a low, patient voice, about emotional undercurrents and charged looks between people hinting at shifting alliances, evolving convictions... (So much easier to analyze, to predict, when they were laid out in words than while they were happening. Tobirama understood people well enough, especially in political circles, but sometimes he understood them better at a remove.)

"You know, when you feel better you'll have to give a report."

... Mngh.

"Of _course_. I racked up so much intelligence, I'm not going to just sit on it." 

He couldn't even think about it objectively right now. Oh, he could _act_ objectively, by asking himself what he'd do if he was fine and then pretending (and also lying to himself that nobody could tell), but giving observations and analyses while in the throes of ' _they made me a **nest** and took such good care of me and Madara is as ridiculous as Hashirama, did you know that, I did not know that_"? That wasn't happening. 

_(Izuna didn't let me beg. Madara didn't let them defile me.)_

_(Izuna didn't let me beg.)_

"I just..."

"You _just_ ," Hashirama retorted, vaguely scolding. "You just backed up so much heat hormones you're going to be out of sorts for another two weeks at this rate. I told you that you should have let yourself have one every couple years at least."

"We don't know that's what's causing this," Tobirama grumbled back, knocking his forehead against Hashirama's chin as revenge. "Maybe it's just a side effect from the Fūma's fucking drug. Maybe it's an interaction with my suppressants--"

"--your _experimental_ suppressants--"

"--and _maybe_ it's even a freak allergy, we don't know! Anyway. If you need a report to the council to shut them up I can do it." It would just feel like tearing his guts open in public, like betraying his mates (Izuna's mad bout of laughter, Madara's flustered offense and sudden flashes of wry humor. Izuna's constant wariness and his fucking _respect_.) Tobirama was good at shoving away what he felt. He could do it.

"Hmm... No, the council can spin their wheels a while longer. You know, Elder Keima was really insistent about me spending less time with you in case we synced up and ended up indisposed together, so now I can't help feeling I have to be really insistent about _not_ doing that."

Tobirama lifted his head just enough to throw his brother a baleful glare. In the dimness it barely went through; Hashirama chuckled anyway.

"That does _not_ happen. Did he even think about how many of your heats I spent with you?"

"You were on so many drugs, Tobira," his brother bemoaned. "So many."

"... Not _all_ the _time_." Not when he'd been younger, having to muddle through dosages and interactions with no guidance. "And it. _Doesn't. Happen_. What would be the evolutionary advantage in related sets competing for the _same alphas_? Syncing heat cycles between omegas is _not_ a thing and has never _been_ a thing and..."

His throat tightened.

"...You smell like him."

He curled onto his side, tucking his face under his brother's chin. Hashirama raked his fingers through his hair, ruffled it gently. Said nothing when Tobirama turned his head, just a little, so he could catch the scent smeared across his palm. The scent that Hashirama had just thoroughly spread into Tobirama's hair.

"Not like Izuna, though," he couldn't help but say, so quiet he barely heard himself.

Hashirama said nothing, just tightened his hold and rocked him slightly.

Suddenly all he could do was curl into himself, into his brother's chest, fingers digging into his own arms to keep from clinging to his brother -- his _older_ brother, who wasn't and who had never been his littermate. His omega brother who still managed to smell right, and safe, and _his_ , the way his own mothers didn't.

From the start their lives had been set on different paths and there he was, unable to even comprehend that he and Hashirama would never be part of the same household, that no children would call the both of them Mother.

Carrying their children the one time had only ever been an indulgence he rarely thought about -- one day, if they were secure enough, if Hashirama didn't feel odd and replaced about it, he could try out being pregnant in turn, if by then his drugged-down womb could still bear fruit.

He would have chosen making himself entirely barren in a second, in barely a blink, if that meant he could stay.

"Tobira, shh."

 _I don't want this_ , he didn't say, because it was too late and he wasn't going to drag Hashirama down with him. What would they do -- make Tobirama a concubine in his own brother's marriage? Live as two spinsters? Make Hashirama the kind of wife who got cuckolded under his own roof _by his own family_ with a smile and a shrug? He only had to ask and Hashirama would throw away all the political capital he had to make it happen. 

Then they would lose the alliance with Uzushio, to start with, and their husbands-to-be alongside it. Then they would lose face, and the Daimyos would not greet them at court, and they would lose missions and revenue, then... 

"Shh, it's okay, it's okay."

"It's not," he replied, dry as he could make it through the knot in his throat that wouldn't budge. 

_Safe with littermate_ , his agitated instincts still said, even though they should have howled to throw Hashirama out of his nest. The biggest danger to newborns, past the birth itself, was other omegas. Because a bereaved mother, having failed to deliver safely and mad with grief and unfulfilled maternal instincts, would absolutely abduct a babe and only feel guilty afterwards, if at all.

 _Safe with littermate and mate-scent_ , they said, at sickening odds with his sense of loss.

He closed his eyes and refused to imagine the Uchihas in the nest with them, bracketing the two of them and exchanging quiet teasing and jokes over their heads. Just because he'd been afforded a glimpse of two virtual strangers' private lives and they'd all managed to navigate a too-intimate situation with most of their honor intact didn't mean Izuna and Madara had stopped being his enemies.

It was nothing. Soon he would be over it. Things would be normal again. 

The only thing he had lost in truth was something he had always known he might not get to keep, anyway. It was okay.


	2. Chapter 2

So life went on, never mind that clandestine meetings with his best enemy and erotic encounters with his (arguably, his brother's) _worst_ enemy seemed like they should herald some upheaval or other. 

Madara had always been of the opinion that you should be the change you wished to see in the world, which in this case meant that mostly he carved out several hours of free time in his days to personally drill the Knothead Squad, as Izuna had so aptly named them.

He drilled them on endurance, on speed, and on resisting the urge to bite out your superior officer's throat, which they could do with more of. He relentlessly triggered the alphas' braggart challenging instincts and the betas' protective and territorial instincts and every single more personalized fault line they committed the mistake of twitching minutely about while in his line of sight. He jeered, sneered, yanked on hair and kicked unsuspecting asses. And always, the second they lost control of their tempers and pride and charged him, he drowned them in enough ice-cold killing intent to drop a charging bull.

It was a lot of fun.

Wrestling the Elders was less fun, but Izuna had a lot of friends around willing to bring him the hottest gossip about which litters were courting who and with how much parental input.

"Naturally if it's a love match, we leave it alone."

"Naturally."

"Or even a companionable and friendly one. Sometimes when everyone in a litter has different tastes, that's the best you get."

"Uh huh."

"But when it's the parents wanting those matches, it doesn't hurt anyone to suggest better ones."

"Niisan, I don't actually care, are we interfering with this one or not?"

"Oh, you are a _cold_ -hearted man."

"Meh. If they actually were into it it'll make for some drama when they run away to elope, and that's gonna bring down their parents' standing either way, so."

"You're my favorite."

"I had better damn well be."

Anyway, the plan was to go through the next little while armed with aggressive optimism and also a dash of normal aggression. Honestly, it wasn't going too badly.

Why, just this morning Hachirō and his three siblings had humbly begged for forgiveness as they now fully understood the depth of their stupidity.

Madara was pretty sure they were lying to get out of special training, but he was also pretty sure he had them properly cowed at this point, and he had put them in with squad leaders who were used to idiot newbies. So.

... So he still wasn't letting them off this easily, but it did feel good.

When he dropped by the healers' hall, he was told Setsuko's arm was well on its way to full healing. He made notes to integrate her more fully into the training camp. Perhaps she could graduate early, as he did feel mildly... not guilty, perhaps just embarrassed that he had let his temper make him go overboard putting her back in her place. She'd been outrageous before that point, though, and that did deserve some clear, if _calmer_ consequences... Hmm, and Hitoka and Sayo had been quiet and obedient recently too... 

Still not letting them off that easily.

"Madara-sama! Done torturing children for the day, then?"

"Hah! That kind of job is never done."

"It's good for a man to have pride in their work. Kibi dango?"

"As if you need to ask."

All the sliding panels of Yoriko-shishō's class were wide open to let the light and breeze liven up the inside. Twenty little knee-high desks, around which children pressed up in twos or threes, sometimes by litters and sometimes by friends, and a mess of unrolled scrolls and precariously perched inkpots. The children ranged from seven years old to a rare, late twelve and from what Madara could observe as he finished his dango were all pleasantly eager to learn and enthusiastic to put their lessons in practice.

Apart from the two scowling in the back, one in each corner. Naohime (age nineteen) was studiously staring at the far wall and pretending the teacher did not exist; as for Katsuhito (age eighteen) he had his shoulders almost around his ears as he scribbled, just as studiously ignoring the Nobly Brooding alpha in the other corner.

Madara resisted the urge to prop up an elbow against the doorjamb and say hello to the class, but barely.

A full ten days after that disastrous sortie, the two morons who had thought hooking up while on guard duty was a grand idea with no drawbacks were finally starting to realize that this was not a joke and they were in fact expected to attend -- and _pay attention to_ \-- the baby classes until Yoriko-shishō let them go.

Yoriko-shishō was a squad leader veteran who had not lived to the ripe old age of fifty-something by coddling that kind of stupidity. When she finally looked up and pierced him with a 'and what exactly are you doing here' look, Madara smiled back contentedly.

"Just making my rounds, don't mind me. Children learning well?"

"As well as always, I suppose. Children, say hello to Madara-sama." After which, as her tone said she dearly hoped, he would wander off and stop being a distraction.

She was fine with children being enthusiastic and loud, so long as they were enthusiastic about learning. Madara was, alas, not part of her lesson plan. He gave an ironic little bow back at the kids, amused. She hadn't taught him and his sibs personally -- private tutors only for the clan heirs -- but she _had_ taught Izuna and his twin. He'd heard _stories_.

Just -- a really good teacher. Losing her leg might have saved a lot more lives than if she had kept being on active duty.

As her students straightened back up and finished chorusing a deafening hello, Madara glanced quickly toward the back of the class, arched an eyebrow, raised his hand to negligently push his hair back, and flicked her a quick, 'how many survivors to rescue at the end?' in battle signs.

"Shishō, we don't know these signs!" a child protested, and another squinted and started trying to make them back. He did figure out the 'rescue' part but why survivors had become shoes was a mystery.

"They're adapted for one-handed use," she said serenely. "Also Madara-sama was making them a little sneaky to help you practice." Ouch. "Well then," she added with a polite bow, and her hands flickered right back. 'Make rounds' pointed at him, a fluid 'before', and then 'enemy action' pointed right back at her own chin. Madara cackled out loud.

Katsuhito appeared appropriately abashed, but Naohime was staring at him with her eyes narrowed into slits. So, probably just the one survivor then. He pretended not to notice either of them as he nodded a goodbye to the class and turned to keep walking along the temple's open gallery.

His pleasantly smug promenade was brought to an impolite end by a soft-spoken "Madara-sama" from right behind his left shoulder. If he wasn't used to Hikaku startling years off his life that way he would have stabbed him.

"Don't _do_ that!" he hissed, hoping none of the students had seen him startle. Clan heads were supposed to be dignified, damn it, why did his whole family insist on making that impossible?

"Did I do something, Madara-sama?" Hikaku replied blandly. 

Madara considered kicking him off the gallery, but the drop to the garden grass was barely two feet high. Not worth it. Huffing, he waved a hand over his shoulder, signaling that it was done and they should move on. Hikaku's lips pinched like a repressed smile. Damned brat. 

"It's about the Daimyo's heirs' birthday celebration."

"--Oh, curse it."

"You wouldn't have _forgotten_ , Madara-sama," Hikaku said in a way that was less of a question or even a reassurance, and more of a veiled threat. Madara huffed.

"Of course not. I've just... had other crises to tend to." 

Like, oh, his green, imbecilic young alphas, his imbecilic and much more experienced at it Council of Elders, the Senju clan leader's beta brother turning out to be a secret omega in what had to be the _most_ imbecilic and hare-brained attempt to cover up something _no sane man would have contemplated even had the truth been left bare_ , that same omega brother provoking some rather seismic changes in Madara's relationship with his own littermate -- 

Oh, the last one had been a good change, on average. It was still constant work to adapt to, to keep in mind.

(Also, Madara hadn't yet managed to jerk off without his imagined companions acquiring toothy smirks and sweat-soaked white hair in the middle.)

The Fire Country daimyos had decided they were going to mark their heirs' coming of age. Every affiliated clan leader was expected to attend, and the excuse would have to be very good to skip out. _'We're in the middle of getting decimated by evil moon invaders'_ level of good.

"Anyway. I'm listening."

"The Grand Secretary wishes it to be known that the esteemed clan leaders of the Hyūga, Akimichi and Aburame have confirmed they will be personally attending." 

"... Well, that limits the risks of attack while we're off to the capital," Madara replied, displeased anyway. The daimyos _had_ promised to come down on any who broke the peace during the celebrations, but they were shinobi; to them that just meant 'don't get caught'. "Senju?"

A wry look. "The Senju are still considering their options." 

Ugh. That was going to make things tense with Madara's strategists and the Elders. Hard to plan without knowing what their biggest threat was doing first.

The invitation had no doubt been addressed to "Senju-sama and Littermates", but -- were they going to mark their official separation via Tobirama declining to attend? Madara would have to leave Izuna behind, then, the clan would not settle down otherwise, but that was going to annoy the Daimyos. 

... Or Tobirama might still come, too. Huh.

... Huh. That was... Huh. 

Too many facets to think through right now, bubbling up in a confusing mess. Madara forcefully pushed that particular thought away for later; Hikaku was still going through the list of confirmed, possible and unlikely guests.

"... Fūma?"

"No news yet. They're keeping their arrangements strangely discreet." Hikaku side-eyed him. "Please avoid getting assassinated at the Daimyo's court, if you can."

Yes, they were likely to still be extremely riled up from last time, weren't they. How many of them had Madara and his people killed or maimed, barging in on their mission out of nowhere? Losing the targeted omegas was just adding insult to injury; losing Tobirama to the Uchiha even as his heat scent bloomed through the woods like blood in shark waters a last slap to the face on the way out. 

Madara _really_ wasn't sorry. "I'll keep it in mind."

He'd be surprised if they didn't try to kill him or Izuna at least once. Maybe he _should_ leave him behind regardless. 

... And maybe that reasoning would earn him a punch to the nose.

"Did you report to Izuna yet?"

"Kuen did. She's with him right -- huh."

Madara looked up at the temple's roofs. Kuen was not, in fact, with Izuna right now. Madara immediately straightened up, watching Hikaku's sib land in the grass like a dainty boulder. Damn it, he thought with alarmed dismay, he'd been having a good day.

\--

The Senju envoy was still waiting at a widening bend of the path in the woods, looking unruffled as she stood with her back straight and her arms loose, a few feet away from the little cart she'd been pulling along. 

The home guard would have incinerated her a half-hour ago but she wore the armband of a messenger and wasn't making a move to get any closer to the compound, or reach for a weapon.

"Izuna."

Izuna tilted his head toward Madara, though his eyes didn't leave the tanned-brown, weathered face of the messenger. She was mostly expressionless, tension well-mastered. Madara figured one had to have solid nerves indeed to accept this kind of mission. 

"I don't know what's in the cart but I already don't like it," Izuna whispered back. "Explosives?"

"At this distance it'd blow flat a lot of trees and that's it," Madara retorted almost silently. "Any allies?"

"None."

"Hm. I'm going."

Izuna's hand shot forward, grabbing his sleeve. "The _hell_ you are."

"I've got Susanoo." 

"So do I!"

Madara was tempted to look away from the Senju woman to glare at his brother. Somehow, he resisted. "There's no need to risk both of -- agh."

"Hah! You just said there was no risk. Which one is it?"

Ugh. Alright. Breathing in through his nose, Madara thought through his options. The woman was well-surrounded, so escape was unlikely. Hashirama was _extremely_ unlikely to order any assassination attempt under that kind of cover, one because it would destroy all future chances of communication and look really bad to all of their allies, and two because he knew better than to assume he could take Madara down with a mere five crates of explosives, and after that Madara would be out for enough blood to wash the river red. 

Susanoo's armor was extremely durable. Izuna would be safer than even the men standing thirty paces behind him as long as he had it on. 

"Alright. Pincer. I approach from the front. You cover the back in case she runs. Shield the men if it explodes. Good?"

"Good enough."

Izuna disappeared from his branch. Madara waited for a beat, and then dropped onto the path. 

The Senju beta inhaled slowly, seeing him, and then bowed at the waist, opening the white signal fan in both her hands to hold it out on her palms. The Senju clan mon stretched across its folds, surrounded by the kanji for truce.

He breathed out, nodded curtly. "Very well. Safe passage out to you, if there is no treachery."

She bowed lower in acknowledgement. Around them the forest rustled in the breeze, or probably just the watchful anger and suspicion of the patrols surrounding them.

"Rise. Your message, then?"

"It is in the tube at my side, Uchiha-sama. May I retrieve it?" 

Madara flicked his fingers in curt agreement. She pulled a bamboo tube from her belt, stepped forward three steps to put it on the ground, then politely stepped back. Madara did not need Izuna's narrow-eyed stare over her shoulder to signal one of the shinobi watching to pick it up and unroll it for him, their red eyes checking the paper for seals or strange discolorations hinting at contact poison. He had his usual gloves on, at any rate. The shinobi eventually handed Madara the letter with a short nod, and disappeared back in the trees.

For all that it was signed with Hashirama's name, it didn't look like his hand -- too angular, readable but unpretty. Traces of his scent still rose from the paper, though; his, and -- Madara's fingers clenched on the sheet, creasing it. Izuna flashed him an _alarm?_ hand sign.

 _White_ , Madara signed back, and since the Senju was watching didn't complete it with the snapping fangs that on their own signified Hatake or Inuzuka, but his hand had twitched that way and he knew Izuna's sharingan wouldn't have missed that.

It was even fainter than the traces he'd picked up on Hashirama himself at the river, and it had been several more days since. It was annoying how viscerally that scent tugged at him. Scowling, he made himself actually read it.

It was a formal acknowledgement of blood debt, for -- oh, huh. 

Both for Tobirama's life and for his honor.

_To Uchiha Madara-Izuna-sama,_

Addressed as one. The first hit, he noted in the back of his mind, probably tailored for Izuna especially.

_The events of ten-days past are not so removed that we shall weigh this letter further by detailing them. But neither shall we stand silent on the topic of the great clemency that was granted to the heir of the Senju clan by Uchiha Madara-and-Izuna._

_We acknowledge it to have been unbidden, undeserved and impossible to make even. Yet, we shall not stain our own honor by returning magnanimity with cold and ungrateful silence. Therefore..._

It went on a little bit, subtly expressing reluctance and pride, the profoundly uncomfortable nature of feeling indebted toward your own enemy, and the desire to put the whole affair behind them already so it could be forgotten by all. Because obviously the Senjus were taking it _much worse_ than the Uchihas, who could _actually_ take pride in the way their clan head's actions reflected on them as a whole and in having gotten the better of the Senju clan somehow.

It was a masterpiece.

It also mentioned an appropriate reward. Madara looked up, arched an eyebrow in question at the messenger, and tilted his head toward the crates.

"One-fifth of Senju Tobirama-sama's bride price," the beta said staunchly. 

Oh. Damn. Appropriate indeed, considering that the initial issue surrounded his, ah, _purity_ \-- or at least that of his womb -- but it was so unexpected. Tobirama might be an omega by sex but Madara had somehow never made the jump toward him being an omega by custom and societal expectations as well. Wearing long sleeves as anything but a disguise. Having a _dowry_.

He'd been living his life as a beta, hadn't he. Maybe that was why.

"One crate of dyed silks and rare furs. One crate of rare spices from the land of Wind and the exotic countries that lay beyond its great desert."

A few of Madara's shinobi were growling quietly, feeling insulted by the random, unwanted luxuries. Bits and pieces of a greater fortune, probably barely noticed missing, contaminated by their being Senju handouts.

There was not a single Uchiha clan member who didn't know, deep down where it burned, that the Uchiha clan might be ennobled by the Daimyo themselves nine generations back, but the Senju were _rich_ , and growing richer every day. Numerous, and losing so many fewer shinobi. Just overall -- a challenge and a threat and a very real risk of total, pitiless eradication.

"And three crates of samurai metal with which to forge chakra blades."

Sudden, complete silence. Then Izuna inhaled through his nose. 

"Open one," he ordered, just a little strangled. "Open them all."

The silvery ingots, bared under the leaf-dappled sunlight, gleamed in that inimitable way. Rows of them, enough to outfit two or three squads.

 _That_ was only _one fifth_ of a _second son's_ price? Madara couldn't help staring, eyes bugging out. Was Hashirama _bragging_? Trying to show off his clan's good fortune? Was he just --

\-- Oh. Oh, the devious bastard. The letter had been impressive enough, but this?

He could have sent over a whole ton of tyrian-dyed silks, an elephant's weight in pearls and squid and caviar. He could have sent it, and the proudest of his clan members would have howled to throw it all back in his face. His charity, his contempt.

But _metal to make superior weapons with_. Metal to arm the Uchiha -- enable them to fight the Senju more efficiently back.

There was no way they could refuse. He had hit them right in the greed.

Hashirama's own council must be _howling_ , Madara thought, eyes helplessly held in thrall by the wet gunmetal sheen of samurai steel. There was no way they even had much more in stock, even rich as they were; Madara himself had seen maybe sixty weapons made of it so far in his life, and all in the hands of clan leaders and heirs. (His gunbai had some, cleverly mingled in. The seals converting his chakra nature to wind in it were a masterpiece, but without the metal to conduct the chakra they would have been pointless.) But what Hashirama had just bought with it -- that was a foot in the door. A toehold, at least, to climb that impassable cliff separating their clans. 

He gave a brusque nod, mind whirling with unfurling possibilities, with coming political fights that suddenly seemed winnable instead of endless slogs in circles. "Check for traps, then pack it back up," he told two of his people over his shoulder, and turned back to the messenger. "Are you to wait for a reply?"

She bowed, face still expressionless, like she didn't care. Madara wondered if it was a normal Senju thing; Tobirama had also been disturbingly good at looking wall-faced in the presence of an enemy he couldn't fight quite yet. 

"If you desire to send one back, Uchiha-sama, I will wait until tomorrow afternoon."

Madara met his brother's eyes, tried to read his face. Izuna's eyes were red but he couldn't tell if it was wariness or offense or -- less likely -- excitement. He stepped aside, signaled for his brother to join him, handed him the letter.

Madara-Izuna, huh. 

Madara still remembered being one third of _KijiSabiMada!_ , barked across the training halls and shrieked by startled washerwomen. Izuna had been half of IzuGuma once. This was more formal, not a familiar, loving mishmash -- no one in the clan had dared yet; and he didn't know if they ever would. 

They didn't address them as a set formally either anyway, so. 

\--

Izuna ran through the letter a first and then a second time, even though he had memorized it with a flash of sharingan already.

The wording was so damn pompous and stern. It made him want to sneer. He couldn't pick up whatever it was Madara had reacted to earlier -- the handwriting? He didn't care about that. Probably a scent.

Probably Tobirama's--

No matter. It was signed with the Senju clan head's personal seal. Didn't matter who had played the scribe for him.

What mattered was...

"This doesn't sound a _lick_ like him."

So, a trick.

"Mm-hm," Madara replied noncommittally. When Izuna looked up with a suspicious frown he quirked him a bare ghost of a smirk, eyes hooded with amusement and not a single drop of suspicion. 

"... What is he playing at?" The crates loomed nearby, offering glimpses of ridiculous riches. "Making us feel indebted right back?"

That was what the letter sounded like, at any rate. Going on and on about honor and debt like they were all gods-damned _samurai_. Like the Uchiha were going to nod and puff up and, what, start making a habit of it? 

Of _not_ torturing and degrading their mortal enemies by any means available to them?

The Senju weren't the Sarutobi. You didn't _ransom_ a Senju. You didn't play nice because some moron had booked your two clans on the same mission and while some day you might get another job that would pit you against each other, right now you weren't, and it wasn't personal.

The conflict with the Senju wasn't a conflict over _missions_ , on behalf of _employers_ , not even a conflict over stolen contracts.

Fact was. 

Even if you erased the centuries of grieving and fear, wiped them off the ledger entirely, the Uchiha needed the Nakano for their forges, their glassworks. The Senju needed it for their crops. There wasn't enough water for all of it. There was a reason half of their conflicts sparked alongside channels dug in haste to divert as much of the capricious flow as they could get.

The Uchiha needed the _wood_ for their forges, too, and for their weaponsmiths, and for their houses. Good, straight wood, well-dried, of a good length. The Senju razed it all down for more crops, shoved them back toward the rocky slopes full of brambles and tortured pine trees and only let them win back fallow ground and swamps. It had only grown worse under Hashirama. What did they care of how exploitable the forest was? If they needed good planks, he could make them. Firewood didn't need to be seasoned if he grew it already dry. Furniture to make? Mahogany, rosewood, ebony, all at the flash of a hand. It didn't matter much to them when a whole bunch of eighty-year-old oaks went up in flames; Hashirama would just laugh and fix it.

Izuna kind of hated the guy.

"Making us feel indebted? Oh, no, almost the other way around," His brother replied, and smiled with all his teeth.

Izuna frowned. What, making the _Senju_ feel indebted? 

"Let's discuss it on the way back. Kuen!" Madara barked, turning away. Izuna stopped himself from scowling deeper. They were still in public. 

Their cousin appeared at Madara's side in a second, high ponytail swinging, the picture of unassuming attentiveness. "Madara-sama."

"You and Hikaku are in charge here. Treat the Senju politely, find her an actual roof to sleep under that's not a barn. She doesn't come any closer to the walls."

Izuna's shoulders unwound minutely. At least he didn't have to convince his brother that she didn't need to get inside their actual compound and it'd be more polite or some shit. One samurai habit he was glad Madara apparently didn't sneak sidelong tempted glances at. 

There were enough woodcutter's huts and the like in the woods to provide shelter. Kuen and Hikaku would figure something out, find the one easiest to surround and keep watch on. Izuna made a note to send out the rest of their sibs to assist as soon as they got back, if only to coordinate with the home guard. 

The Senju messenger was so inexpressive, he couldn't help but think, throwing her a last look, and to a sharingan that felt wrong; barely any microexpressions, any twitches. Felt like disdain, a challenge not expected to be won. 'You'll never know' like a banner on their faces. She didn't even _look_ like Tobirama, nothing similar in the angles of their faces, but the expression --

Madara gave the messenger a last nod of acknowledgement, a curt "Tomorrow," and then marched away. Izuna forced himself to turn his back and follow. It wasn't even that he thought she was a secretly-high-level shinobi who could actually be a threat to the squads they'd left behind. It was just that she was in their woods.

"Out with it," Madara said, throwing him a pointed side-look. "What's bothering you?"

Trees all around, no one in sight. Still. "Are we alone?"

Madara blinked, paused to crouch down and pulse his chakra into the earth to feel for eavesdroppers. "Alone enough."

"Alright." Tersely, "I don't know what his endgame is and I have _no goddamn clue_ why you're so happy about it. Oh, and you're not surprised."

His great oaf of a brother only blinked. "Well, I knew he was planning _something_."

Izuna hissed between his teeth. "You didn't say that!"

"It's Hashirama! He's always plotting something. Most of the time something stupid, but then you turn around and he was thinking six months ahead. He wouldn't tell me anything about it, though." He frowned. "Did I really not bring it up to you?" 

Izuna was pretty sure he would have remembered hearing about the _Senju leader **plotting about his clan**_. All Madara had ever said was that Hashirama had shared a _personal, not relevant secret_ \-- how was it not relevant? It was about their most dangerous enemy's leader -- that the Senju council of Elders was being difficult -- about what? Probably the Tobirama situation, alright, but how exactly? -- that they might see more bloodline theft attempts, and then they'd started talking about their brothers. 

Then Madara had gone about his life like the whole thing was resolved, just as private and irrelevant to his brother and his clan as his childhood escapades.

Which had _never_ been private or irrelevant, no matter what Madara wanted to tell himself, no matter how unfair it was. Madara had been clan heir back then and now he was clan head and some days the only thing he seemed to have taken from it was 'this means I can do anything I want and nobody has the authority to forbid it, right?'

Izuna missed Kiji-nii and Sabi-nii so damn bad sometimes, but when it was about wrangling Madara, he just... He kind of hated them for dying and leaving it to him.

"You didn't bring it up," he confirmed, jaw tight.

"He just said it was better if I didn't know the details, so I could look appropriately surprised."

"Yeah, that didn't work." Izuna growled under his breath. "Never mind, people probably won't have noticed your _fucking glee_."

He knew he'd gone too far the second it left his mouth but he couldn't make himself look apologetic either, not even when his brother stopped in his tracks, eyes narrowed in warning. "Alright, I don't know what the hell has you so hostile here but you need to reel it back a bit." 

"You _don't know_?"

Madara glared back, as if he really had no idea. "I told you when I went to see Hashirama and you were _fine_ , so I don't know why you're suddenly so hostile to the very thought that we might talk to them. You know we're looking for a way to have peace!"

That was not -- no. "Making plans is one thing. But you're trusting him to _conspire behind your back_ ," Izuna said, forcefully controlled. "You don't know what his end goal even _is_ \--"

"It's about making us feel superior so we'll be less defensive when he makes more polite overtures, I thought it was obvious! Didn't you see the tone in his letter? How it sounds like they're _ashamed_ and _indebted_ and generally _inferior_?"

... So he was letting the Uchiha think they were saving face. 

Was making a big deal out of -- some more stupid samurai bullshit, 'honor' and 'respect', like they were things the fucking Senju had in his keeping to bestow. Making them want it more, then conveniently being the one offering it to them. 

And Madara thought it was a _good thing_. He thought it was _generous_. Letting their people believe that bullshit. Izuna was so angry he couldn't even find the words to line it all up straight away, to explain the layers of manipulation his idiot brother was missing entirely. The Uchiha clan wasn't meant to _give a fuck_ what the Senju clan thought of them, not even the worst of them -- the omega rapists, the child-killers, they were the Uchiha clan's business, the Uchiha clan's to judge and condemn and whisper about, they weren't the Senju's to drift by and make a big condescending deal out of something Izuna had damn well not _done for them!_

He hadn't built a nest for Senju Tobirama because he wanted the Senju clan to pat him on the fucking head. He'd --

Never mind.

"So he's manipulating us into a false sense of security."

Madara tossed his head, threw his hands up in frustration. "Damn it, Izuna, he wants peace too! And if he has to make it sound like we'd be doing him a favor then why the hell does that matter? It's not like being upfront has worked so far!"

"Why do you assume he's not manipulating _you_ by making you think you're in on it so you won't block the real plan cold?"

He didn't expect his brother to growl, alpha-deep and resonant; it rattled up his throat, through his clenched jaw. Izuna flinched back, shoulders clenching. Madara turned away, took a few tense steps through the bushes. 

He didn't reply. Didn't argue back. Which Izuna knew to mean his only argument was 'I know Hashirama better than that' and he was at least still smart enough to be aware that it was a ridiculous argument when made to and about shinobi.

Izuna waited him out, arms crossed, watching him pace and stare away through the underbrush with his jaw rolling, Izuna in his blind spot.

"Does that mean you won't stand with me before the council?" Madara forced out eventually, still staring away. 

Would he stand before the council and say he rejected the offer, say they should send back the messenger with a 'fuck off,' with empty hands entirely... 

"... No," Izuna finally decided. "I'll stand with you."

He stepped up to Madara's side, watched him breathe out, relax. Like they had avoided a fight, but Izuna knew better, knew it had only been postponed. 

He managed a smile somehow. God, why was it so hard to disagree with Madara. With his elder brother, his not-really-a-littermate. They were both adults now; it was so frustrating. He wasn't even sure it truly was a hierarchy problem, or...

He didn't want Madara to ever look at him with disappointment; it hurt too much, too raw. 

"Well! I don't care about his motives in the end, he can't make me feel shit. I'm perfectly able to love my future chakra sword while being completely ungrateful to the man who made her possible."

Madara choked. "-- _Izuna_ ," he groaned, a reluctant smile on his mouth, in his voice. 

They reached the tree line still slightly out of step, still a little too stiff. Izuna couldn't make himself apologize for his part in the disagreement, or even say out loud that he could see where his brother was coming from. He _couldn't_ see where his brother was coming from, he couldn't even fathom playing around with a kid a couple times and assuming that meant he could trust the adult version with his life and his clan. Izuna couldn't even trust most of his own clan that far, too petty and tangled up with their own selfish wants. Trustworthiness of outsiders -- of informants, of allies -- had to be checked and tested and never truly relied upon. Their fathers had insisted so much on that point...

He was glad Madara hadn't pushed it. Demanding Izuna trust Hashirama's good intentions on Madara's word would only make him stop bringing up his concerns to Madara entirely and go behind his back to set up failsafes. 

At least Madara still believed in him enough to confide in him -- even if he did that after the fact, distractedly. Izuna wrapped that fact around him -- that his brother was just thoughtless, not deliberately keeping him out of things; that he'd been trying to be better and it was going to take time before they handled things the way a proper litter did. It was just growing pains, to be expected. Madara had been on his own for too long to fall back in so easily. 

At his side, Madara pulled the rolled-up letter out of his sleeve to stare at it again, not really reading it. 

"What are you thinking about?" Izuna asked -- it came out quiet, and he berated himself for it. They were getting close enough to the walls that the guards would soon be able to see their faces, read their body language, and know without a doubt that they were not of one mind on this. Then the Elders would know. He couldn't let himself show so much.

"Tobirama," Madara replied after a too-long pause, and swished the letter around. "I'm pretty sure it's his handwriting. His scent is on it. So does that mean he agrees with Hashirama's plan, or...?"

"Huh." Izuna took a deeper breath, faintly disappointed. "I can't smell it."

Did that mean Tobirama had been turned to Hashirama's side, too, or did he have his own undermining plots? How solid was their bond, anyway? They'd been raised as a set from infancy, not like him and Madara, so how closely-bound were they in truth? Their temperaments couldn't have been more different, Izuna struggled to find a common trait between the two of them.

Izuna and his brother were too close to the gate now to ask openly. Anyway, Madara would only be guessing, just like Izuna was. "Why do you suppose he would write for his brother? Is Hashirama's writing just that bad?" Izuna asked drolly. "Do they not have scribes, or did they not want anyone in their clan to know they sent it?"

Rather unlikely, that one -- nobody was going to fail to notice entire missing crates of samurai steel, and if they thought it was theft it would create a lot of trouble.

"Maybe he wanted to add a flower border along the edges," Madara suggested sarcastically. "Maybe it was to make sure Hashirama didn't offer us a fifth of the moon while he was at it."

Izuna scoffed; fell silent. 

The guards checked them over for genjutsu with their sharingan, and then started pulling the small gate open. Izuna followed his brother through it and down the main street, watching the subtle sag of his shoulders, the slightly-too-proud cant of his head. Already preparing his show for the elders. 

He didn't like it; making Madara feel besieged on all parts, without allies. 

"Wonder if that means he's one fifth our betrothed?" he mused, quiet but lilting. Madara almost spluttered out a lung. Izuna smothered the triumph in his smile. "I mean. They did specify they were bribing us out of his actual dowry. It's an honest question!"

"Oh, I _dare_ you to ask him that to his face."

Izuna snickered, nudging him with a pointy elbow. "I wonder what fifth it is?"

"Why did that sound filthy?" Madara asked, sounding mildly despairing. Izuna leered, eyebrows wagging ridiculously.

"I'll tell you my favorite fifth if you tell me yours."

Madara's nose wrinkled in superior elder-brother annoyance, like it always did when Izuna brought up... his conquests, or his crushes, or -- it could have hurt, if he didn't trust that Tobirama had managed to ram all the way through Madara's disdain for the pleasures of the flesh. If he didn't believe -- 

Madara's frown melted into something almost too dignified to be a pout (it was a pout) and then he sighed put-uponly. "... I guess legs would be nice." 

Ooh, interesting choice. They were, after all, long and strong and incredibly bendy. Izuna himself had had some pleasant thoughts about them wrapped around his waist. Or thrown over his shoulders. Or marked with red bites along the inner -- ahem.

Granted, he'd more often had thoughts about them wrapped around his neck, killing him with insulting ease. They were weapons, just like the rest of the man really. But if you indulged in the wild fantasy that the White Demon of the Senju wasn't planning to break your neck with them they were quite acceptable. "Hm. I can agree with that." 

"Thank you for your support," Madara replied dryly.

Izuna grinned. "Mine's--"

"Do _not_ tell me."

"I was going to say 'his face'!"

(He had not been going to say 'his face.')

"Uh _huh_. I don't actually want to know your reasoning for it, because I'm sure it's either going to be horrifying or something I don't want to think about in public, so no."

"You're so cruel to me, Niisan. _So_ cruel. My heart is in pieces. I may never recover from this."

"Oh, I wish."

Bickering carelessly, they walked into the council house.

Izuna knew it was more of a show of confidence and solidarity than the real thing, but this was good enough for now.

It was workable, at least. In the short term. He put it out of his mind; right now Izuna would support his brother in making the Elders accept the gift. He knew they were all suspicious old bastards already; he wasn't going to need to tell them not to accept the strings that came with it.


End file.
